A Closer Look: Representative Nathan Cooper (R- Xenophile)

xen·o·phile (zn-fl, zn-)
n.

A person attracted to that which is foreign, especially to foreign peoples, manners, or cultures.

For a simple young attorney from Cape Girardeau, Representative Nathan Cooper has certainly forged a strange trail to the statehouse in Jefferson City. In a few short years, Cooper has patched together a coalition of professional "offshoring" gurus, recent émigrés, foreign nationals and international criminals, all of which lend his political dossier a rather exotic flavor. A look at his record reveals the portrait of a man who is more Southeast Istanbul than southeast Missouri, more Cairo than Cape. In all, a rather queer recipe for political success in the little Mississippi River hometown of conservative icon and renowned flag-waving blowhard Rush Limbaugh.

And given recent rumblings regarding some potential impending legal scrapes for young Nate, now seems as good a time as any to take a flip through the political passport of our general assembly’s own resident internationalist. Behold a man of many cultures, Nathan Cooper.

Going Offshore

Most every state representative, if asked about what sorts of things he seeks to do for his constituents, would include in his answer something about pursuing policies which bring jobs to the people of his district. So it's quite odd that Nathan Cooper would do precisely the opposite, going even so far as to seek information on how he could ship work he needed done to people overseas.

How do we know that Nathan Cooper sought to "offshore" jobs from here in Missouri to foreign lands? Well, one clue was the Request for Information that his firm posted to a website devoted to joining offshoring consumers with offshoring providers. The request includes a concise description of what Cooper was looking to do:

Law Offices of Nathan Cooper, LLC is an immigration boutique firm. The firm practices exclusively in immigration and nationality law and has offices in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, MO, USA. Law Offices of Nathan Cooper, LLC would like to source some of its legal processes from a reputed provider of outsourced services. If you are interested, please respond with an overview of your firm and the services you can provide.

The request included a series of questions for potential bidders, and lists as the contact person someone named Malik Vivek.

One can only wonder why Cooper --rather than seeking to have his firm's "legal processes" done by some worker in Bangalore-- didn't try to hire someone from Cape Girardeau and keep things local. Did he think that there wasn't anyone in his hometown qualified enough to do the important work of his law firm, or does he just have more faith in the work ethic and ability of folks in other countries?

Next time you hear Nathan spout the usual GOP folderol about "job-killing taxes", feel free to remind him that he's the one who is killing American jobs by sending work offshore.

Counselor Cooper's Repeat Offenders

In the post-9/11 era, most public figures --reliant on the people's trust for election-- would shy away from long-term professional relationships with "businesspeople" who have a propensity for getting pinched hauling illegal truckloads of infectious waste. Not Nathan Cooper. In fact, Cooper showed no hesitancy about reaffirming ties to a toxic dumper well after he became intimately aware of the transgressions. Puzzling? Perhaps, but less surprising when we learn that the offending party was another one of Cooper's international "friends".

Moumen Kuziez, so far as anyone can tell, makes a living by fraudulently soliciting businesses with a need to dispose of hazardous waste. And by occasionally accepting such waste and toting it around until he puts it someplace it doesn't belong. Sweet gig. Only state and federal law enforcers aren't so crazy about this line of work.

In 2003, the state of Arkansas proposed charges and fines totalling $100,000 against Kuziez, his company MWA LLC, and his partner in crime Wally el-Beck, for various violations of regulations covering the handling and transport of medical waste.

Kuziez and El-Beck were required by the rules to obtain a commercial medical waste transport operation permit from his agency before hauling waste in Arkansas, but have not done this since April 2002. They also are required to pay $5 a ton for all commercial medical waste transported into Arkansas, the notice said, and they have not done this either. In addition, WMA, Kuziez, and El-Beck were required to submit an annual report to the Health Department giving the names, permit numbers, and amounts of medical waste deposited and unloaded at each facility in Arkansas; the amounts of waste shipped into and out of the state and shipped within the state. The department said it has received no such reports.

The department said there is no evidence WMA, Kuziez, and El-Beck have the required insurance with a public liability limit of at least $1 million and authority from the state Insurance Department to operate in Arkansas. Finally, the department charges WMA, Kuziez and El-Beck with violating the rule that they deliver commercial medical waste for storage, treatment and/or disposal only to a facility that holds a permit for these activities from the Health Department.

 And when it came time to face the music in a court of law, who do you suspect was at the ready to make the case for Kuziez? Take a guess at it then read on...

The hearing scheduled for Thursday was postponed after Nathan Cooper of Jackson, Mo., a lawyer for one of two men named in the charges, complained his client did not receive notice in time to prepare his defense.

But the Arkansas scrape wasn't Kuziez's only run-in with the law. In 2004, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon pursued fines against Moumen Kuziez and el-Beck when...

In October 2002, authorities discovered 75 containers with about 2 tons of infectious waste -- including used blood vials, used syringes and other medical waste -- stored at the home....

"The defendants carelessly handled, stored and transported infectious waste, without regard to the law or the safety of people who lived near this house or along the routes they traveled," Nixon said in a statement.

And as though that weren't enough, in 2005 federal prosecutors began criminal proceedings against Kuziez and el-Beck for another fraudulent enterprise.

On July 13, Wally El-Beck, of Springfield, Ill., and Moumen Kuziez of St. Louis, Mo., were charged in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock with mail fraud and wire fraud charges. Between Dec. 31, 2000, and March 5, 2003, the defendants allegedly made numerous fraudulent solicitations to industrial waste generators located in Tennessee and Illinois claiming that they would dispose of their waste through incineration.

As you can see, Kuziez managed to develop quite a rap sheet for himself. Remarkably, while Kuziez was compiling his criminal history of hazardous waste schemes, Nathan Cooper maintained a professional relationship with him. In fact, the public record indicates that Cooper thought nothing of continuing to work for and with a known toxic dumper, either unaware or unconcerned about how this might appear to Cape Girardeau's electorate.

In the midst of the enforcement actions by the State of Arkansas, on May 13, 2003, Cooper became the registered agent for a newly created Missouri corporation called Midwest Pioneer Investment, LLC. That corporation was organized by none other than Moumen Kuziez. A few weeks later, on May 28, Cooper also became registered agent for a "general automotive business" known as Show Me Family, Inc. Kuziez was also the sole incorporator of that LLC.

And perhaps most egregiously, on January 22, 2004 Cooper became registered agent of another of Kuziez's corporations. This one, called Midwest Pioneers Service, LLC, according to its creation filing had as its purpose "general transportation and trucking." So, after having spent the last seven months playing attorney and trying to get his client Kuziez off the hook for illegally hauling hazardous waste, Cooper decides it would be a good idea to sign on as registered agent for a new outfit via which that client can do some more trucking business. How goes the old saying? "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice..."

Perhaps for certain friends, Nathan Cooper was only too willing to be fooled, or was in on the game all along.

Designs on a Fee Office

At the beginning of March, Fired Up! reported on disastrous management of the South Kingshighway fee office. The fee agent for that office --appointed by Governor Matt Blunt-- is a man named Damir Huskic.

It happens that Huskic, like many of Cooper's cohorts, is another key cog in the St. Louis area international machine. A 2003 Riverfront Times story describes Huskic:

24-year-old Bosnian Damir Huskic connects the dots of the smokehouse controversy and says it's really a cover for a simmering xenophobia. Huskic is a busy man. He works for Catholic Charities and sells real estate, and he's the proprietor of Caf Palermo, a coffeehouse at Delor Street and Alfred Avenue, in the shadow of the Bevo Mill. This month, he starts producing and hosting a television show about the Bosnian community on the city's public-access station.

And so how does a (now) 27 year-old Bosnian who --given the South Kingshighway fee office's performance-- lacks good management skills get hooked up with a lucrative fee office that was previously managed by the state? Getting connected by retaining Nathan Cooper's legal services looks like a plausible explanation.

In October of 2001, Damir Huskic incorporated a Missouri corporation called Palermo Designs, LLC. The registered agent for that corporation was Nathan Cooper, then of Jackson, Missouri.

As far back as 2001, it seems, Nathan Cooper was the go-to guy for members of Missouri's international community who sought to set up corporate entities for doing business here. Cooper's foreign national-friendly business strategy, which continues today, apparently dates back to the start of his practice. Not surprising perhaps, given Cooper's public take on Missouri's immigrant population:

"We have good jobs here, and they're taking jobs that Americans don't want. Why stay in a country where you get paid 50 cents an hour, and that's only if you can find work at all? Most of these people are wonderful people who are just looking for a better life."

The Palestinian Partnership

In October of 2004, Nathan Cooper embarked on a new iteration of his legal practice, becoming partners in a firm called Cooper and Yaghnam LLC. His partner in that outfit is a woman named Rana Yaghnam. As you might expect, Yaghnam --like most Cooper compatriots-- has a track record of international involvement and activism.

Yaghnam, in fact, holds a position of national prominence in US-based Mid-East oriented activism. She is a member of the National Board of Directors of the Palestinian American Congress. On its website, the Palestinian American Congress describes it self thusly:

The Palestinian American Congress adheres to the principles that the Palestinian People Constitute an indivisible National unit, that Palestine, an integral part of the Arab Nation, is its national home land. The Palestinian American Congress affirms its support of the Palestinian people's struggle to realize its national rights including its right of return to its national homeland, to national self-determination, and to its national independence and sovereignty with Jerusalem as its Capital in Palestine in accordance with the United Nations Charter and Resolutions.

Chapters of Palestinian American Congress around the nation have organized such actions as tributes to Yasser Arafat and boycotts of American Burger King outlets.

Indeed, Yaghnam herself was the organizer of demonstrations at the Old St. Louis courthouse in October of 2000 while a law student at Washington University. She also served as vice president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee of St. Louis, and described her group's activities in April of 2002, stating:

"We came here to protest the Israeli occupation and the U.S.'s complicity in it."

Cooper did not highlight his partnership with Yaghnam nor his resultant connection to pro-Arafat groups during his run for the state legislature in 2004.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with internationalism or the love of things foreign. In fact, those impulses are, I believe, intrinsic to Americanism, as each of us has our foreign roots only so far removed. But as we examine the long history of Nathan Cooper's international proclivities and preferences the question that arises is "at what point has Representative Cooper's identification with and advocacy on behalf of international interests eclipsed his responsibility to the people of Missouri's 158th House District, and has he already blown past that point?"

Perhaps even more urgent is the question of whether Cooper's constituents --the folks who put him in office less than 2 years ago-- know the international skinny on their state rep. And if they don't, would they put him back in office if they did?

­Though we can't know for sure, and though I have no empirical evidence to back me up, I suspect that in Nathan Cooper's district Burger King polls much higher than Yasser Arafat. It is anyone's guess what those folks would think if they found out whose side Cooper had taken. It's time they knew.